St. Ambrose University has established a new downtown-Davenport presence in the NewVentures Center, located at 331 West Third Street. St. Ambrose will initially use office space and state-of-the-art "smart classrooms" to administer the Master of Organizational Leadership degree program and offer several MBA courses. St. Ambrose will continue to develop a strategic vision for its downtown presence, including other business and leadership-development initiatives. Already in place, a collaboration between St. Ambrose and the Figge Art Museum has resulted in several exhibits, and other joint projects and initiatives are under consideration.

The Quad Cities Mississippi River Project Office's new administration building was recently opened in Pleasant Valley, Iowa, near Lock and Dam 14. It is the largest project office in the Rock Island District and the largest U.S. Army Corps of Engineers presence in Iowa. The roughly $2-million facility will serve as the planning and operations center for 314 miles of the Mississippi River from Cassville, Wisconsin, to south of Hannibal, Missouri. It will be responsible for managing roughly 300 federal employees and more than 96,000 acres of federal land, including 55,000 acres of natural floodplain forest, 12 lock-and-dam sites, and 26 recreation sites.

Scott Community College is building a new science addition featuring a large, high-tech lecture hall with comfortable seating; updated lab facilities; and full multimedia classrooms and labs. The building will house the college's chemistry, physics, and physical-science classes. Construction began this winter on the south end of the campus. It is expected that construction will be completed in October, and classes will be offered in spring 2010. This project is one of three capital-improvement projects planned on the Scott Community College Belmont Road campus in Bettendorf. Other improvements include a second college entrance and a renovation/addition to the Applied Technologies building.